


He goes to (he goes left)

by megyal



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: M/M, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-14
Updated: 2010-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-11 10:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megyal/pseuds/megyal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for <a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/smallfandomfest/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://www.livejournal.com/users/smallfandomfest/"><strong>smallfandomfest</strong></a>, for the prompt <em>John's family finds out</em>. Title from the song 'Papa Loves Mambo'.</p>
    </blockquote>





	He goes to (he goes left)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/smallfandomfest/profile)[**smallfandomfest**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/smallfandomfest/), for the prompt _John's family finds out_. Title from the song 'Papa Loves Mambo'.

"He's not here," Jack said, gazing down the corridor as Lucy knocked politely on the door of their father's apartment. Because their dad was a McClane, her version of 'knocking politely' consisted of beating her fist against the worn wood. "Quit it, Luce. Let's just go."

"Today is his _birthday_," Lucy said, whirling around to glare at him. She narrowed her eyes at him as he rolled his own. "He's all alone, you know."

"Whose fault is that?" Jack shot back, now leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. "Not mine and not yours. He's probably at work right now, saving the entire world from imploding or something. Trust me, he's not _all alone._"

"You don't know--" Lucy stopped and exhaled sharply through her nose, her new anger-management trick. Jack smirked at her. "Jack. Just listen. He's... he's not thebest of dads, okay, I give you that one. But he's still _our_ dad. And he'd do crazy shit for any of us, okay?"

Jack, who still had a bitter taste in the back of his mouth when he thought about how his father was always at work, never home to pitch a baseball or show Jack how to ride a bike like _other_ dads, gave his sister a slight shake of his head. "Not everyone got the rescue package, Luce," he told her, making sure to fill his voice with a good dose of snide; Lucy threw her hands up in the air, exasperated. She hassled the door one more time, and then turned to Jack with a frustrated little pout.

"Okay," she said, her voice heavy with disappointment. "Let's go."

"You can call him later, I guess." Jack slung an arm around her shoulder as they headed towards the staircase. He wasn't too keen on seeing his dad, but he didn't like seeing Lucy so down... even if she was worse than their mother at times, in terms of general pushiness.

"Luce... Jack?"

Jack actually started at the sound of his father's voice, and looked down the short flight to the landing below. His father was standing there, a brown shopping bag clutched in each hand. Beside him, a dude about Jack's age was carrying a bag in one hand as well, gazing up at them with wide, dark eyes.

"Daddy! Happy Birthday!" Lucy flew down the stairs and flung her arms around John's neck. He smiled and put his arms around her, not releasing the bags, and his sharp gaze flicked up to where Jack was still standing, leaning against the bannister.

"Hey, Jack," John said, voice almost toneless.

"John," Jack greeted in rather the same manner, and bit the inside of his lower lip when a sharp expression flashed over John's face, the way light would slide over the edge of a lethal knife.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked, and Jack let out a breath that he hadn't known he was holding. "Oh, Matt." He jerked his chin at the man beside him. "That's my son, Jack."

This Matt, whom Jack remembered from watching TV after that craziness with the hackers, climbed up the stairs in a fairly sprightly fashion. He favoured one leg, though, leaning on the bannister as he held out his hand, eyes warm and grin wide. "Hey, man," Matt said as Jack warily allowed his hand to be shaken. "Nice to meet you, finally. Met your sister, what, a year? How long was it, McClane? Anyway, that was crazy times, so! You don't look like John, lucky you."

Jack blinked at him and said, "I look more like my mom, I guess. The hair." Jack waved a hand at his head; he had the same shade as Lucy's, and he wore it long and let it hang around his eyes. Matt nodded in approval.

"Awesome." Matt smiled and went past him, holding away the bag he was carrying so that Lucy wouldn't take it from him. "Seriously, I can handle this, Luce. No worries."

Lucy chattered about the reason for their presence as John keyed open his door. Jack glanced away when his father gazed at them, not wanting to catch the look of surprised pleasure that John sported for a moment.

"So this means I don't have to bake a cake, right?" Matt asked as they all trooped inside, he and John placing the bags on the kitchen table. Jack stared at that table for a long time; before he, his mother, his sister had moved from New York to LA, he remembered carving into one of the feet of this same table, peeling away blue paint to gore the lines. Now, the table had been stripped and re-polished so that the natural wood-grain could be appreciated, but Jack tilted his head, a faint smile touching his lips when he realized he could still see the shaky lines that created the letters JUNIOR.

He remembered being called Junior; he had felt safe and happy, until his parents decided to separate. He'd informed his mother that he didn't want to be called Junior any more, and definitely not 'John'. Jack sighed and looked up, meeting the unreadable gaze of his father as he was handing cans to Matt for storage in the upper cupboards; Jack breathed out and allowed a small smile. The corner of John's mouth twitched.

Then, his face went stony again as Lucy asked Matt what _he _was doing at their father's apartment.

"He's staying with me 'til he gets back on his feet," John answered before Matt could, a touch too quickly for Jack's taste. Lucy gave Matt's jeans-clad legs a pointed glance.

"He looks pretty sturdy to me," she said jokingly, but the skin on John's forehead wrinkled a bit more than usual. Matt cleared his throat, even though he hadn't said a word, and put the ice-cream in the fridge.

"You guys going to stay for dinner?" John asked, snagging a package of chicken before Matt could stack it in the freezer again. "I was going to cook this."

"Oh, yeah, you were," Matt said, and glanced at Lucy and Jack, who both had their eyebrows lifting to their hairlines at the thought of their father _cooking_. Matt seemed to stand a little taller, as if bracing himself for some attack, and then nodded determinedly. "I'm gonna go, um, change. I hate these jeans."

"You hate them because your mother bought them for you," John said, grinning, and Matt made a face at him. Jack exchanged another questioning glance with his sister. His father only teased people he really liked, so what was the deal with this Matt dude? He shifted to let Matt go through the doorway, and he leaned a little so he could see where Matt was headed to, where the bedrooms were.

From this location, he could see one door standing wide open, but it was obviously a bedroom being used as an office with an inordinately large amount of computing gear. Jack was pretty sure that his father didn't know the first thing about turning on a computer, much less comprehending the capability of the shiny silver and black machinery. So all of that must belong to Matt; Jack was wondered where he slept, and stared as Matt opened the door to the other bedroom.

Before he slipped inside, John caught a glimpse of an unmade bed, blue sheets nearly slipping off the mattress. Matt was tugging off his shirt even before he nudged the door shut with his foot.

"Dad?" he heard Lucy say, tone querulous. "Daddy?"

"Yeah, pumpkin." John spoke in the manner of one being marched in front of the firing squad. "Hand me the black pepper, sweetie."

"You have black pepper?!"

Jack turned his head and watched with a distant sort of amusement as Lucy poked around some seasoning bottles on the counter and pulled out the black pepper with a mystified air, as if she hadn't exprected to find it at all. She reached out to him, and then drew back the bottle to hold it close to her chest.

"Luce," John said with a hint of impatience. "Come on, I need to start dinner before Farrell dies of hunger--"

"John, what's Matt still doing here? _Really._" Lucy set her lips into a thin line.

"Living," John answered, and his own lips thinned the same way.

"And sleeping in the same bed as you?" Jack threw in, half-jokingly... then it turned to a sick sort of horror when, without answering, his father took the black pepper from Lucy and shook out some of the contents into the bowl of chicken, motions tight and intent. "No way. No. _Way._"

"John McClane!" Lucy's tone was completely scandalized. She was the one who delighted in driving their mom crazy during her rebellious teenage years, so it was kind of ironic that she would sound _exactly _like her now. "You... he's, like Jack's age!"

"Maybe he's replacing the son he never had," Jack said and felt the corner of his top lip pull into a sneer. "Who bats and who catches, _Dad_?"

"Watch your lip, _John_," his father said, very harshly, and he tossed the meat into a battered baking tray, put his hands on his hips and stared at it for a long time, before saying, "And I have a son. You."

"Daddy, how did you... _when_ did you--"

"Lucy, I'm out," Jack said, feeling the whole room turn around him. He couldn't even _believe _this shit, really. He just wanted to be away from this unreality as soon as possible, go back to the apartment his mother's new husband owned, and just... chill.

He ignored his sister's strident questions and the heavy silence from his father, and headed towards the door. He saw Matt standing in the living room, dressed in a pair of pyjama pants and a grey shirt that was definitely too big for him, arms folded over his chest.

"Jack," Matt said and Jack pointed a warning, trembling finger at him. He didn't give a fuck, not at all, but he was breathing hard as if he had ran a marathon. "Jack, come on, just. It's his birthday. We can--"

"Fuck off," Jack said to him. You stole my father from me, from my sister, from my _mom_, Jack wanted to say, but the words were stuck somewhere in the back of his throat.

_Besides_, he thought as he pounded down the stairs and out the main door, _I never had him anyway._

_fin_


End file.
